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An Old-World Escape Near Mexico City

Hacienda Casa Malinche near Huamantla.Credit
Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

I ARRIVED in Tlaxcala, the small capital of Mexico’s smallest state, on the Sunday before Mexican Independence Day, Sept. 16. The town was overlaid with banners and lights in the red, green and white of the national flag. At dusk, there were celebratory firecrackers and, in the morning, the cloudless sky was a piercing aquamarine.

Compared with the hazy-brown air surrounding Mexico City, just two hours to the west, Tlaxcala’s palette is almost kaleidoscopic. The low colonial-era buildings are painted in burnt umber, salmon pink and mustard yellow, and the domes of the tangerine-toned cathedral are covered with cobalt blue talavera ceramic tiles. And unlike Mexico City, where the overwhelming traffic can feel like a glue trap, Tlaxcala has a compact center that makes an easy base for exploring the big-sky beauty of the surrounding countryside.

This is the central appeal of Tlaxcala, home to about 15,000 people. It is a town built on a modest scale that has retained its historical charms — perfect for a weekend getaway from its big-city neighbor. (It is also the seat of the safest state in Mexico, with a low crime rate to match.)

Tlaxcala (pronounced Tloks-CA-la) is set amid a sweeping valley where maize and chiles have been cultivated in the rich, volcanic soil since pre-Columbian days. The twin Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes stand tall in the distance, capped in snow, with Popo occasionally smoking. On this fertile earth, Tlaxcalan ancestors built cities of stone and painted them with depictions of jaguars and feathered serpents; they warred with a powerful rival nation, the neighboring Aztecs. When the Spaniards landed, the area’s indigenous warriors allied with the European conquerors.

In the centuries that followed, some 1,000 haciendas were built in the state — large, rural estates that grew a mix of Old and New World crops, raised livestock and produced pulque, the slimy, fermented sap of the agave plant (known in Mexico as maguey). Today, about 200 or so haciendas remain, clusters of churches, stables and schools rising above the cornfields. Most are decaying relics, but about a dozen have been restored and are open to visitors, either as museumlike hotels packed with antiques and artifacts or as restaurants. In the landscape of central Mexico’s highlands, these crumbling adobe and stone complexes give an eerie, cinematic glimpse into Mexico’s gilded age.

Head to the small town of Huamantla, about 45 minutes from Tlaxcala, and you’ll find Soltepec, the best known of the functioning haciendas. It towers above the surrounding farmland like a castle, with imposing stone towers and a tall wooden door. The hacienda reopened in 1994 with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a white-tablecloth restaurant that serves rich regional specialties like mixiote de borrego (marinated lamb cooked in paper made from maguey leaves) and escamoles (ant larvae, harvested from the roots of the maguey). The rooms are drafty and, in the evenings, when only the overnight guests remain, Soltepec’s maze of narrow, high-ceilinged hallways can feel like a south-of-the-border answer to the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.”

On the Tuesday afternoon of my visit, Soltepec’s owner, Javier Zamora Ríos, had agreed to take me on a tour of the Tlaxcalan countryside. I had told Mr. Zamora, who often takes his guests to visit Tlaxcala’s rural haciendas, about my appreciation of pulque — a viscous, white, lightly alcoholic beverage, historically brewed on these rural estates.

We’d planned to meet after breakfast, but Mr. Zamora, who also holds a job at the state tourism office, was running late. Stuck in an interminable meeting, he sent an emissary, Rubén, who took me to a 500-year-old Catholic church in San Lucas, Huamantla’s oldest neighborhood. We climbed a narrow spiral stone staircase to the orange domed roof, where we found sculptured horned cattle heads where you’d expect religious iconography. Looking down on the town, I saw children playing in a plaza and, beyond, the tallest peak in Mexico, Pico Orizaba, rising above the swaying grasses of the landscape.

By the time Mr. Zamora arrived, Rubén and I had ducked into a small, home-style restaurant, La Casa de los Magueyes, where we were treated to the last wild mushrooms of the season, direct from the slopes of La Malinche, another nearby volcano. The mushrooms were prepared simply, seasoned with garlic, lightly grilled and topped with bitter maguey buds.

Later, the three of us drove along narrow lanes through endless cornfields, then up into the low hills. We soon arrived at Hacienda Tepeyahualco, one of several haciendas that Mr. Zamora’s great-grandparents once owned. When they died, Mr. Zamora said, they left their property to their gambling, liquor-loving son — his grandfather — who spent the family’s pulque fortune and lost nearly all their substantial estate. The hacienda is now run by three brothers who have dedicated it to the life of the charro, a Mexican cowboy, with bullfighting posters, ancient branding irons and rusted rifles on the walls.

Next, we climbed higher into the hills, to the home of Valentín Montiel Calderón, a 78-year-old pulquero. His pulque, Mr. Zamora said, would be stronger and fresher than any I’d tasted.

At the modest Montiel family home — a small cinderblock, aluminum-roofed house carved into a hillside of terraced cornfields — we were greeted by Joel Montiel, the 17-year-old grandson of Mr. Montiel, who was ill. Soon, we were stomping through the fields, Joel leading the way, bushwhacking head-high cornstalks to clear a path.

When we emerged, we stood beside a giant maguey — a 12-year-old plant with the wingspan of a manta ray. Joel stepped onto one of the big leaves, lifting a flat rock from the heart of the plant, revealing a well of a golden, iridescent liquid beneath. He dipped a blue plastic mug into the maguey’s center and handed it to me. I took a shallow sip of the agua de miel — honey water — to avoid drinking the drowned bugs at the bottom of the cup. (When fermented, this raw liquid becomes pulque.) It was surprisingly refreshing — like coconut water, but sweeter. We stood, taking turns, sipping from the cup, then refilling it.

Back at the house, Joel’s father, Joel senior, was standing with his uncle and a friend, the three men drinking from tall glasses. After introductions, it was time for the cruzado de amigos — the friendship cross — a combination of drinking game and toast, which welcomes newcomers to the Tlaxcalan countryside. I stood with Joel senior, our arms locked as if we were wrestling, each of us with a raised hand, holding a glass of pulque. Mr. Zamora filled mine, topping it off with a mischievous grin.

Joel senior gave a short speech, welcoming me to his humble home, and I gave one, too — in my inferior Spanish — thanking him for his hospitality. Then we drank long gulps of pulque until both our glasses were empty. We passed the glasses around each other’s backs, in an awkward dance. Joel senior tossed the small bit of remaining liquid onto the concrete. “Un alacrán!” he said, pointing to a resulting mark on the ground in the shape of a scorpion. Look, he explained, that’s how we know the pulque is good.

As we raced back to town, late for an appointment Mr. Zamora was about to miss, my stomach was so full it ached. We traversed golden fields of corn and wheat; above them was the Tlaxcalan sky, a pure, vibrant blue. Mexico City — loud and polluted — might as well have been thousands of miles away.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

First-class ATAH buses (Autotransportes Tlaxcala Apizaco Huamantla; 112 pesos, $8.50 at 13 pesos to the dollar) leave every 20 minutes from TAPO station in Mexico City and take two hours. From the Tlaxcala hilltop bus terminal, it’s a short walk to the central plaza — or you can hop a taxi (about 30 pesos).

WHAT TO DO

The hacienda and pulque tour can be arranged through Hacienda Soltepec (see below). Book in advance, as group sizes are small (four people maximum; 390 pesos a person).

Set around a colorful courtyard with fruit trees and a fountain, the rooms at Posada la Casona de Cortés (Lardizábal No. 6, Colonia Centro, Tlaxcala; 52-246-462-2042; lacasonadecortes.com.mx; from 500 pesos) are crafts-filled and comfortable, if not luxurious.